Baltimore County Public Schools
Grade 11 United States History
Students of United States History apply historical thinking skills toward understanding of the
economic, political, and social development of our nation since the conclusion of the Civil War.
As a complement to students’ experiences in middle school, United States History provides the
older student opportunities for in-depth and focused analysis of the issues, problems, and
successes of the American people over the last 150 years. This analysis is guided by the use of
organizing themes, expressed as the following questions:
How is the role of government determined and modified in the United States?
How has the United States utilized its economic resources to provide opportunities for the
American people?
How has a diversified population contributed to the development of the American culture?
How is American foreign policy determined and implemented in a world with increasing
global interconnections?
United States History is characterized by ongoing emphasis on historical thinking skills and their
applications toward critical thinking, issues analysis, and decision making. Students will assume
the roles of historians as they analyze primary sources, consider issues of reliability, interpret
data, compose historical questions, and weigh the merits of competing accounts and
interpretations. Students will confront historical problems and conditions that do not always
have a definitive resolution and illustrate the complexities of history, the social sciences, and
citizenship. The following units of study and representative content provide the framework for
United States History and its ambitious goals:
Initiatory Experience: Concluding the Civil War (historical themes, results of the Civil War)
Unit I: Reconstruction – Restoring the Nation (unresolved issues and problems of the Civil
War, Reconstruction policies, Southern responses to Reconstruction, African American
initiatives to achieve equality)
Unit II: Transformation (Western settlement, industrialization, immigration)
Unit III: The Age of Reform (labor movements, Populist Movement, Progressive Movement)
Unit IV: Emergence as a World Power (Spanish-American War, imperialism, World War I)
Unit V: 1920s-1930s- Domestic (economic and cultural changes, Harlem Renaissance,
intolerance, Great Depression, New Deal)
Unit VI: Foreign Policy – 1920-World War II (responses to totalitarianism, World War II
home front, World War II war effort, post-war issues)
Unit VII: The Cold War (origins, containment, Korean Conflict, arms race, McCarthyism,
brinkmanship, Cuban Missile Crisis)
Unit VIII: Turbulent Times (post-war changes, Civil Rights Movement, social and economic
initiatives, Watergate, Vietnam War)
Unit IX: Recent America (Carter and Reagan foreign policies, social and political issues, end
of Cold War, regional conflicts)
Unit X: Contemporary America (applications of historical themes to contemporary issues)
For a more detailed content outline and indicators for this program, please see your child’s
teacher.
2/12/2016